Retailers are taking advantage of technical innovation to build enriching experiences that drive customer engagement and purchase behavior. As consumers become more tech savvy and are better informed, their demands and expectations change, leaving retailers to compete for their attention and loyalty. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated how quickly retailers must shift to meet changing market dynamics. Seemingly overnight, we witnessed transformations built on powerful e-commerce platforms and new digital-led services.
Taking an omnichannel approach
Now, as buyers return to stores in-person, brick-and-mortar storefronts are once again a crucial sales channel, driving retailers to consider how they can give consumers the best of both digital and in-person shopping experiences. To deliver these connected and personalized offerings, retailers are turning to digital platforms, building user-centered solutions that improve the in-store customer experience and directly impact sales.
Why data matters
As operational costs grow and profit margins are squeezed, it is vital to make the best use of every bit of retail space available. To provide intelligent digital services that facilitate the entire customer decision-making process, retailers are leveraging data technology to power this integration of online and offline shopping experiences. Within traditional technology architectures, customer insights were frequently scattered across different systems or partially consolidated within on-premises infrastructure, delivering limited scalability. As customer demands and preferences rapidly evolve, retailers need the technological foundation to process customer behavioral data in real time—across branches, regions, and channels—to enable the generation of new revenue streams, diversification of customer touch points, and accumulation of incremental customer insights.
Know your customer
Faced with immense pressure to rapidly scale operations and stock availability at the height of the pandemic, many retailers encountered economic and supply chain barriers that resulted in high volumes of stock and overhead. This has increased the need to get more of the right products into the hands of consumers. By turning customer insights into business value, we can create innovative omnichannel experiences that drive customer engagement and increase basket size, including:
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Dynamic pricing based on market basket analysis models for both online and in-store purchases
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Applying location-based or seasonality discounts in real time at the checkout
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Offering recommendations to help stretch the value of customers’ wallets
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Campaign scripts for in-store staff, personalized for the items scanned or customer profile
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Payments by facial recognition, enabling known customers to have a completely frictionless in-store experience
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Cameras at self-checkouts that automatically identify and register items as they are put in bags
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RFIDs, access control systems, sensors, and smart shelves that can be applied to prevent retail shrinkage
Start small and scale fast
Retailers are constantly challenged to improve how they securely deliver the right product to the right buyer at the right time via the right channel. To empower their e-commerce, application, and data teams with the agility and scalability to deliver these innovative solutions, they are leveraging real-time analytical models, composable development platforms, and modern software practices.
Check out these resources for more on how retailers are using insights to drive their businesses:
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Read the white paper Data Science and the Balanced Team to better incorporate data science into your existing processes, team, and culture
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Register for the webinar “Harnessing Real-Time Analytics to Improve Customer Experiences” to help your team deliver new cross-channel customer touch points
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Watch the on-demand webinar “How to Adapt your Product Mindset for Machine Learning Products” to start crafting these technical models into viable products
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Learn how DICK’S Sporting Goods moved its software development in-house and aced omnichannel retail
To help your team get started and tackle an idea or business challenge, register for a free, one-hour, virtual VMware Tanzu Labs consultation.
